Title

Author

Year of Publication

2013

College

Martin School of Public Policy and Administration

Executive Summary

Teachers are the most important school-based factor in affecting student achievement levels. Knowing what teacher characteristics influence student achievement and whether or not schools in different locations have dissimilar student achievement levels will help administrators prioritize who to hire, retain, and assign to classes. The purpose of this paper is to answer two questions. The first question is whether teacher characteristics are related to student achievement; the second is whether there are differences in student achievement based on school location. A review of teacher quality, teacher incentives, teacher background, the ability of a school to attract teachers, and differences in school location provides some background of the relationship between teacher characteristics and student achievement.

I use data from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) and the Census Bureau. All data is collected at the school level. From this I develop two models. The first is a fixed effects model that allows me to examine the relationship between teacher characteristics and student achievement with a county fixed effect. The second model is similar to the first except I substitute the country fixed effect variable for school location as an explanatory variable. The location variable is sorted into three categories by county population, and defined as large, medium and small. In both models the dependent variable is student achievement, which is measured by the high school’s percentage-passing rate on the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT), a standardized test administered to all potential graduates. I estimate each model five times, once for each section of the OGT.

I use data from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) and the Census Bureau. All data is collected at the school level. From this I develop two models. The first is a fixed effects model that allows me to examine the relationship between teacher characteristics and student achievement with a county fixed effect. The second model is similar to the first except I substitute the country fixed effect variable for school location as an explanatory variable. The location variable is sorted into three categories by county population, and defined as large, medium and small. In both models the dependent variable is student achievement, which is measured by the high school’s percentage-passing rate on the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT), a standardized test administered to all potential graduates. I estimate each model five times, once for each section of the OGT.